


Don't Let Them Tell No Lie

by DeliberateMisspelling



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Hallucinations, Humor, Implied Relationships, M/M, Mild Non-Consensual Touching, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 22:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeliberateMisspelling/pseuds/DeliberateMisspelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is standing on a street corner in the middle of a night halfway through September when he figures out it never happened. </p><p>This, the sign post in his back and the concrete under his ass and Derek looking angrily concerned, this is real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Let Them Tell No Lie

**Author's Note:**

> I'm realizing I'm really bad at tagging stuff, y'all. Like, even worse than I am at summaries. How do I describe this thing that I have written? I do not know. I'm pretty sure I got everything that could be potentially triggering, but there's a spoilery rundown in the end notes if you're concerned. Also, if you think further tags apply please let me know. 
> 
> This story exists in the vague timeline that all of Teen Wolf canon seems to exist it, meaning basically you could pop it in 3b and like... okay sure, but it doesn't contain spoilers for 3b past what one would find in a teaser trailer.
> 
> This is scribble and post un-beta'd laziness/craziness because I had too much coffee today and I have an emotional pain kink. If you see any typos, grammar errors, or tense issues please feel free to point them out. Basically all concrit is always welcome! Fair warning though, like pretty much everything else I've ever written, the ending is pretty abrupt because endings, you guys. How?
> 
> Title comes from The Fray's Love Don't Die because it's on the radio a lot and I think Sterek every time I hear it.

Stiles is standing on a street corner in the middle of a night halfway through September when he figures out it never happened. He’s with Derek doing recon or some shit, he’s not even really paying attention because he doesn’t care. He’s tired, he wants to go curl up and nap somewhere warm. They’ve been there for ages, Stiles is sure. He can’t even see anything, although Derek is staring intensely at the abandoned warehouse across the street. Stiles has no idea what Derek’s looking at, and also once again he does not care. Besides, when Stiles can’t see that’s usually when something pops up out of nowhere and tries to murder him while he fumbles for his cell phone flashlight, so it’s probably time to leave.

  
“Derek,” Stiles whispers-yells, nudging his elbow into Derek’s side.

  
“Stiles,” Derek retorts, much softer but still with a tone that means “Be quiet, I’m doing important werewolf stuff.”

  
“’S cold,” Stiles grumbles, shifting on his feet and surreptitiously leaning into Derek’s space. It’s completely unfair that he gets to run around with an absurdly high body temperature and then also never feel a chill. It’s cheating the laws of thermoregulation, okay, it’s supernaturally unreasonable and Stiles is just leveling the playing field by making Derek share.

  
“Quit it,” Derek murmurs, rolling his shoulder away until Stiles is leaning too far to keep upright and stumbles, hands still jammed in the pockets of his hoodie. Derek sidesteps out of his way neatly and Stiles takes three staggering steps off the curb and into the street.

“Jackass,” Stiles hisses when he rights himself, spinning to stomp back onto the sidewalk.

  
“Klutz,” Derek shrugs, one corner of his mouth pulling in until it’s tight against his teeth and the smirk can’t possibly escape.

  
“Heat hog,” Stiles accuses waspishly, crossing his arms over his chest and jamming his hands into the armpits in a futile attempt to warm them.

  
“It’s _my_ heat, why should I share?” Derek asks and it is clearly rhetorical, which is bullshit. Derek’s still staring at the stupid warehouse that isn’t even housing any wares- heh, _weres_ - like there couldn’t possibly be anything more interesting going on right next to him.

  
“Why should you share? Oh, geez, I dunno. Maybe because I’m freezing my ass off over here while you surveil an empty building and you won’t let me leave? I don’t understand how you can retain the buddy system, but not sharing is caring. Like, did you even attend kindergarten? Oh, wait, no, I forgot. Raised by wolves,” Stiles gestures in the general vicinity of Derek’s everything, and all the social skills he’s lacking. Derek manages to peel his eyes away from the super intriguing whatever that’s not going on across the street to raise an eyebrow at Stiles.

  
“Are we doing that now?” Derek asks, apropos of nothing.

  
“Doing what now?” Stiles demands, tucking one hand back in the slightly-warmer cocoon of his underarm and leaving the other to wave vaguely in the open air.  
“Making jokes about my dead family, and about how said deaths have left me socially maladjusted,” Derek retorts without even twitching, and Stiles feels his eyes go wide. For a long moment he stares at Derek, dumbstruck.

  
“Um, no?” Stiles offers finally, blinking, “Shit. I mean, I wasn’t trying to, just, you’re being kind of a dick and I was also... doing that because that’s kind of our thing, right? But I’m sorry I brought up your family. That was... wrong of me.”

  
Derek levels him with an unimpressed stare for roughly thirty seconds while Stiles tries not to squirm or think about how shitty he is at apologizing.

  
“Soooo, apology accepted?” Stiles asks when he can’t take the mounting awkwardness anymore. He rocks back on his heels slightly even though he knows Derek isn’t going to take a swing at him. Nope, instead Derek breaks into a shit eating grin that knocks the breath out of Stiles’ lungs before he turns to face the warehouse again.

  
“ _Jackass!_ ” Stiles gasps when he can breathe again. Derek snorts.

  
Stiles narrows his eyes and considers for several minutes, the sleeve of his hoodie ending up between his teeth as he sizes up the situation. Inspiration strikes, and Stiles steps off the curb again to plant himself squarely in front of Derek. The concrete of the sidewalk makes Derek nearly six inches taller than Stiles, which is _perfect_ because Stiles can just step forward and slip his arms under Derek’s jacket and nestle his icy nose in the hollow of Derek’s throat and hum contentedly because Derek is _warm_.

  
“What are you doing.” Derek’s voice is inflectionless and Stiles can feel Derek’s arms hanging like useless parenthesis around his body.

  
“Making you share,” Stiles points out even though it’s obvious, and squirms a little closer.

  
“Stiles,” Derek snaps, making Stiles roll his eyes and reluctantly pull his face away from Derek’s neck to look him in the face.

  
“Wha-” The question dies in Stiles’ throat when he sees Derek’s eyebrows drawn in tight above the sharp line of his nose and the twitching curl of his upper lip.

  
“ _Get. Off._ ”

  
Stiles trips back so fast he nearly toes off a sneaker and he doesn’t need Derek to keep his nose warm anymore because his entire face is prickling and burning.

  
“I’m sorry!” Stiles never did picture himself apologizing to Derek Hale this much, “I thought that, that um, that I could-”

  
“That you could _what_ , Stiles, just touch me whenever you feel like it without my permission?” Derek spits, and this one is rhetorical but Derek is definitely not joking.

  
“No,” Stiles’ own voice sounds faint in his ears and it takes him a minute to realize it’s because the blood rushing in his ears is so loud, “No, I thought that-”

  
Stiles isn’t going to finish that sentence because he thought he _had_ permission and now that is obvious that he definitely does _not_ he can’t bring himself to ever admit it. Stiles can feel his heart thumping painfully against his ribs and it feels like his brain is slogging through quicksand because he can’t figure out why his stupid heart is doing that, _why is his stupid heart doing that?_ He’s trying so damn hard to plot it out that when he remembers to take a breath he finds himself gasping, choking, and he reaches out automatically and grasps tight onto the first thing he touches, which turns out to be Derek’s wrist and he’s _not supposed to be touching Derek_ so he jerks back but he must do it too hard cuz his knees sort of waver and then the pavement is a lot closer than it was before and there are hands on his shoulders, big hands, they’re warm and they’re Derek’s and no, nope, that’s not supposed to be like that so he jerks back again ‘til there’s a line of _cold_ digging into his spine and he presses back some more until it bites and oh, oh, it’s a sign post so instead he tries to relax against it, tries to breathe and calm down his stupid, stupid heart but Derek crouches down in front of him and he looks scared which is just, come on, not Stiles’ problem right now cuz everything is going kind of white and then it just... occurs to him.

  
It wasn’t real. This, the sign post in his back and the concrete under his ass and Derek looking angrily concerned, this is real. It’s real because it isn’t stopping, he can’t panic or scream himself out of it. He isn’t going to plunge down for one heart stopping, never ending second only to wake up nauseous in his own bed. He isn't going to leave school, head for home, and turn up in Derek's loft instead. He won't drift off comfortable and safe in Derek’s bed but not remember how he got to school the next day. Nope, this is the real part.

  
“Derek,” Stiles gutters out, and watches Derek’s shoulders drop in relief.

  
“Yes?” Derek leans forward, edges further into Stiles’ space expectantly.

  
“I want you to punch me in the face as hard as you can,” Stiles demands, because he has to be sure. Derek almost topples back on his ass, supernatural reflexes be damned.

  
“What? No!”

  
“Seriously, please.”

  
“No!”

  
“You sure?”

  
“Yes!”

  
“Because it’ll probably hurt less than what I’m about to ask you.”

  
“Stiles.”

  
“Right,” Stiles sighs, “Because you can never do anything the easy way.”

  
“Yeah it’s definitely me that has that problem,” Derek scoffs, and Stiles rolls his eyes even as his chest continues to hitch and jump.

  
“So?” Derek prompts after Stiles spends two minutes staring at the space between his knees.

  
“Have we ever-” Stiles blurts, and then can’t finish his question because he wants to say _fucked? Slept tangled up in your bed? Broken off the showerhead in your bathroom? Eaten dinner at my kitchen table when my dad’s on late shift?_ He wants to shock Derek, to hurt him somehow with the all things Stiles remembers so vividly, but it probably wouldn’t work anyway because Derek has never picked him up by the hips and settled him gently on his own kitchen counter to cup his face and kiss him carefully, tasting of mac ’n cheese and BBQ sauce.

  
Instead he just asks “Kissed?”

  
Derek’s eyebrows draw together again and he shifts back slightly, confused.

  
“No,” he answers slowly, definitively, “Did you think that we had?”

  
Stiles hangs his head to focus hard on the small patch of concrete he can see between his knees again, and chokes out “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a time stamp of the moment Stiles realizes he's been hallucinating a physical/emotional relationship with Derek that he doesn't have in reality. Derek is, of course, present when it happens because Stiles' life is hard.
> 
> Stiles gives Derek a hug that Derek very much does not appreciate, and shuts down immediately.
> 
> Also Stiles asks Derek to punch him in the face, which Derek refuses to do.
> 
> And the ending is pretty abrupt which I don't think so much could be triggering, but I know bothers the shit out of a lot of people.


End file.
